Oil and gas operator Dana Gas on Monday confirmed that there are no overdue payments from the company’s operations in the Kurdistan Region, adding that it was confident of further investments.

According to CEO Patrick Allman-Ward, the operations in Kurdistan “have received all payments in full and on time.”

Allman-Ward added that this “gives confidence for our planned future investments to more than double production levels there within the next few years.”

The company received the payment (USD 102 million) during the fourth quarter of 2018 from production at the Kurdistan Region’s Khor Mor field, located in Sulaimani Province’s Chamchamal district.

In July 2018, the oil and gas operator sid it expected a 170 percent boost in production at the Kurdistan Region’s oil fields by 2021.  

The UAE-based operator also said it plans to increase Pearl Petroleum’s production by 2021 were “on track.” Dana Gas has a 35 percent stake in Pearl Petroleum, a consortium comprised of five oil and gas companies which focus on exploration and production of natural gas and liquids in the Kurdistan Region.

“The first phase of this expansion programme is the fast-track debottlenecking project of the current production facilities,” the July statement read. “The project remains on track to deliver an increase in output.” 

Later, in December, it announced that, as a result of a previous ramp-up of production in the Kurdistan Region, it had successfully reached 70,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) in late November and had either sustained or exceeded that amount since then.

Dana Gas is an independent gas company headquartered in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, that has been active in the Kurdistan Region since 2007 when it entered into agreements with the Kurdistan Regional Government to develop its substantial gas resources. 

The Kurdistan Region estimates that it has recoverable reserves of at least 45 billion barrels of oil and 5.66 trillion cubic meters of gas.